As Chinese technology giant ByteDance accelerates its shift towards domestic chips for artificial intelligence workloads, a few smaller domestic suppliers stand to benefit – if they can deliver at scale amid a void left by Nvidia due to regulatory hurdles.The Beijing-based owner of TikTok is considering turning to a handful of so-called tier-two chipmakers in China – smaller rivals to Huawei Technologies and Cambricon Technologies – for its cloud infrastructure, according to sources and analysts.
In a recent case, ByteDance quietly bought tens of thousands of AI processors from Shanghai-based Iluvatar at a favourable price, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The company was also in talks with a few other domestic chipmakers for potential orders, the sources said.
ByteDance and Iluvatar did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.